Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 56

Mothers of American Daughters: Look for the Heroines

I’m addressing just one of the many concerns Americans have raised in the past two, awful days. We cannot blame the election of that man solely on sexism, as some are quick to do; voters who picked him didn’t do so out of hatred for a woman, but out of love for white supremacy. But as the results came in, women all over the country asked themselves, “What will I tell my daughter?” Some of them asked themselves this because they’ll have to protect them from racism, homophobia, ableism, transphobia, xenophobia, and hate crimes in practice, not theory. I’m not one of those women, and I don’t presume to speak for them. I recognize that the horrors they face run so much deeper than mine. But I think all of us, no matter our individual circumstances, were frustrated by what we saw early Wednesday morning. We saw an intelligent, qualified woman come in second to a stupid man with bad ideas and no experience. It’s a cruel scenario so many of us have lived in our own lives, but this felt like group humiliation on a global stage.

On Tuesday, I proudly took my eight-year-old daughter with me to vote for our first female president. I remembered the joy I felt when, just four days after my daughter’s birth, my country elected Barack Obama. I just knew I was going to feel that joy again, not only at the relief that the election was finally over and we would all be rescued from the Tangerine Menace, but because I was going to be able to share a historic moment with my daughter and watch as she saw the world change for her.

The next morning, I put on a cheerful face when I woke her to get her ready for school. Yawning, she asked, “Who won?” My heart broke to tell her. She was sullen and quiet as she got dressed for the day. I started to doubt myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have talked about the election so much. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up. Maybe I was the source of her disappointment.

When she came home–after a day at school during which other third graders told her, “Hillary wants to murder babies,”–she shuffled up the driveway head down, shoulders slouched.

“How was your day?” I asked her cautiously, and she mumbled that it was okay. I took her into my office, where I told her that even though Hillary lost, she had a special message for little girls. I showed her the video, in which Clinton directly addressed the young girls of America:

““To all the little girls watching…never doubt that you are valuable and powerful & deserving of every chance & opportunity in the world.”

For the first time I’d seen since that morning, my daughter’s face brightened up. “Yeah! Like Ellen Ochoa!”

I have to admit, I didn’t know who that was. My daughter explained, “She was an astronaut. When she was little, she wanted to go on Apollo, but everyone said she couldn’t. Then she got bigger and said she was going to space, and they let her!”

Ellen Ochoa’s mission on the space shuttle Discovery made her the first Hispanic woman in space. She’s now the first Hispanic director of the Johnson Space Center, and its second female director. My daughter, who upon hearing that Hillary Clinton had lost, turned to this heroine she had been keeping quietly in her heart, and saw hope for her own future.

That’s what we have to do now. We have to look for those heroines for our daughters. We have to remind them that Clinton and Shirley Chisholm and all the women who came before them did not fail, but made leaps in progress. We have to point them to Tammy Duckworth, whose faithful service to her country started in our Armed Forces and continues in our United States Congress. We can show our daughters how women have shaped the United States from its colonial days, beginning when Lydia Taft cast the first legal vote by a woman in 1756. From the moment when, in 1851, Sojurner Truth demanded votes for women of all races. When Gloria Richardson pushed aside a National Guard bayonette in 1963.  When Diane Humetewa was confirmed as the first Native-American woman to serve as a federal judge in 2014.  When Bree Newsome climbed a flagpole in 2015 to remove a symbol of hatred and treason from her state capitol. And when Hillary Clinton became the first woman to gain the nomination of a major political party.

Women of all races have a legacy and a place in our history. Hillary Clinton may not have become our first female president, but that doesn’t we have been defeated. And we’re not going anywhere but ahead.

“Nothing can hold back the night”

In the beginning

There was the cold and the night

Prophets and angels gave us the fire and the light

Man was triumphant

Armed with the faith and the will

That even the darkest ages couldn’t kill

Too many kingdoms

Too many flags on the field

So many battles, so many wounds to be healed

Time is relentless

Only true love perseveres

It’s been a long time and now I’m with you

After two thousand years

This is our moment

Here at the crossroads of time

We hope our children carry our dreams down the line

They are the vintage

What kind of life will they live?

Is this a curse or a blessing that we give?

Sometimes I wonder

Why are we so blind to fate?

Without compassion, there can be no end to hate

No end to sorrow

Caused by the same endless fears

Why can’t we learn from all we’ve been through

After two thousand years?

There will be miracles

After the last war is won

Science and poetry ruling the new world to come

Prophets and angels

Gave us the power to see

What an amazing future there will be

And in the evening

After the fire and the light

One thing is certain: Nothing can hold back the night

Time is relentless

And as the past disappears

We’re on the verge of all things new

We are two thousand years

We might not get through this. Many lives will be lost. Many people will be irrevocably scarred. If you have true love in your heart, I have true love for you. I mourn with you. Even if we’re not okay. Even if the country falls apart. You matter to me.

Stay safe. Take care of yourselves. Find solace where you can, even if only for a moment. For me, that’s believing that there will be miracles after the last war is won. I love you.

True Blood Tuesday S02E08, “Time Bomb”

It’s that time! Download here, press play when the HBO sound/logo fade from the screen. Anything that seems like a delayed reaction probably doesn’t have anything to do with syncing issues.

“How could this get published?!”

Content note: This post will contain uncensored racial slurs in quoted excerpts.

If you’ve heard recent buzz about debut author Keira Drake’s YA novel The Continent, you know it’s not the kind of publicity most authors want to receive. The book, centered around a white main character who heals the centuries-long divide between two warring races, relies heavily on stereotypes of Native American people being savage, warlike, and dangerously drunk, and Japanese people being noble, skilled warriors. Authors and bloggers have been posting their reviews to Twitter and GoodReads (author Justina Ireland tweeted a comprehensive summary), and the usual claims of censorship and mob mentality have risen from people who see no problem with the white savior narrative inherent in the story.

The author’s response would have been a fitting, if daunting, “Don’t Do This, Ever” entry. Drake’s husband took to GoodReads to antagonize readers, some of them teenagers, the very demographic his wife’s book targets. Drake herself claimed that the “Topi” (one letter off from Hopi, the name of a Native American tribe) and the “Aven’ei” (who are given names like “Yuki” and ninja-esque skills) aren’t based off any real cultures, then contradicted herself when she informed Twitter that she’d run the book past Native American and Japanese sensitivity readers. Her fans contacted Justina Ireland’s editor in an effort to undermine her career after she publicly criticized the novel. Another reader began a one-star campaign against Ireland; when the reader’s identity was discovered, she quickly ordered Toni Morrison’s entire backlist, then claimed to have been hacked by author L.L. McKinney.

You can’t make this stuff up.

But one question I’ve seen over and over in this mess is, how did this, a book so irredeemably racist as to inspire a petition to delay its publication, get to this point? How did numerous rounds of edits post-acquisition lead to the ARC reviewers received? How did anyone look at this book and decide to give the author a three-book deal complete with a massive marketing campaigned seemingly destined to seat The Continent as the next The Hunger Games?

Much of the onus, in this case, lies on the author, who saw no issue in depicting non-white people as broad caricatures in her story of a white girl saving the world. The book is published by Harlequin TEEN, an imprint of Harlequin. In 2004, I received a three-book contract from Harlequin’s Mira imprint on the strength of my first novel, Blood Ties Book One: The Turning. At no point in the editing of the series (which spanned not just the five different editors who worked on it, but my former agent, multiple copy editors, and an acquisitions board) did anyone raise an objection to the blatant “Magical Negro” character of Clarence, the villain’s loyal butler. After that series was completed, I stepped, wholly unprepared, into the racism-riddled world of fantasy.

My fantasy series, Lightworld/Darkworld, centered around the general premise that the world of fairies and monsters collided with the human world and that the humans had driven all of these fantastical creatures underground, where they were forced to live in sewers and abandoned subway stations and utilidors. One of the factions of “magical” creatures? Were “Gypsies”.

In the second book of the series, Child of Darkness, I described their encampment in the Underground this way:

The mortal man led him to the center of the city. Only here did the plan of the settlement make sense. All of the winding streets led to the center hub, where a huge, communal fire blazed. Groups of singing, dancing, feasting Humans clustered around the wide pit of flames, mortal bodies writing like salamander shadows in the firelight.

The “him” referred to in that excerpt is a Faerie. I describe them throughout all three books as having shining or glowing white skin. This is how I compared him (and all physically perfect, pale white Faeries) to the “Gypsies”:

Mortals were roughly shaped, as if each was cut from a spare scrap of cloth, rather than crafted from the finest bolt. Of course, his appearance would stand out to them. Could they tell he was not mortal? He was built larger than most Faeries, but he stood only as tall as an average Human woman. The Gypsies were a small people, though, wiry and compact, and Dika had not known him to be Fae, when they’d first met. He’d thought then that it was something of an insult, to look mortal.

Yes, my glorious white fairy thought it was an insult to look like the “Gypsies”, who were cut from spare scraps of cloth. And obviously, these roughspun, earthy people who revel sinuously in the firelight would be amazed at the shimmering white beauty of my hero.

The fairy, Cedric, is in the camp because he’s in love with Dika, a woman who lives with the Dya, the matriarchal leader of her people. The Dya lives in a vardo and dispenses wisdom and fortunes:

A lamp of many-colored glass hung beside the wagon door, and it swung wildly, sending a rainbow of shadows across the figure that emerged. At first glance, the figure seemed not even Human; a hunch-backed thing, like a rune stone jutting up from the ground, with a head covered by a leather cap with dangling flaps that obscured her face. She shuffled, and with each step the shells and trinkets wound on cords around her neck and arms clanked and jingled.

It’s like I had a Romani stereotype bingo card and every square was a free space.

As the brown love interest of a white hero, Dika exists in the novel only to give Cedric some angst and drama; she is killed when the entire encampment is flooded as a result of the ongoing war between the Lightworld and Darkworld factions. Later, he winds up with another white Faerie.

That white Faerie, as it so happens, spends a great deal of the second book in love with an Elf, who ultimately betrays her. The Elves are dark-skinned, violent, and have an affinity for dice games.

Out of the all the Faeries, only one doesn’t have pale skin:

The Faery tossed matted, sand-colored ropes of hair over her shoulder. Her skin color matched; she looked like a stretch of desert landscape, amethyst eyes nestled in the dunes.

She’s a villain. In fact, all of the villainous Faeiries have “matted ropes” of hair. When I wrote the book, I imagined them as having dreadlocks because of their “wild” and “uncivilized” nature.

All of this made it to publication.

I can’t lay the blame solely on Harlequin; I’m the one who wrote this trash. But my mind boggles when I think of the number of hands these manuscripts passed through, and the amount of money and support the series received. Though the books saw dismal reviews and worse sales (they still haven’t earned out their grossly inflated six-figure advance), Harlequin threw a lot of weight behind them. They released them back-to-back-to-back over three months. They took out numerous ads and got some of their biggest names to provide cover quotes. And never once in the entire process did anyone say, “Hey…maybe what we’re dumping so much money on is a racist mess.”

Or maybe they did say that only to have their concerns ignored. Or maybe, like many other publishers, Harlequin has failed to employ enough people of color and people of varied ethnic backgrounds on its acquisitions team (this is pure conjecture). In 2013, Harlequin TEEN published Hooked by Liz Fichera, a novel rife with Native American stereotypes. With the publication of The Continent, it feels like the publisher is doubling-down on its support of racist novels, rather than taking any steps to improve the content they’re selling. Coupled with the fact that the publisher is famous for an imprint propped up on “exotic” ethnicities (as recently as this month there will be another Harlequin Presents book with “sheik” in the title, and Spaniards and Greeks still abound), it makes a person wonder if there are any diverse voices being heard behind the company’s doors.

Do I believe that Keira Drake sat down and wrote The Continent saying to herself, “Ha ha, time to reinforce harmful stereotypes and the colonialist narrative!” while gleefully rubbing her hands together? Of course not. Just like I never mindfully set out to write the racist tropes I wrote in Lightworld/Darkworld. But what I intended to do, what Drake intended to do, doesn’t matter. We still did it, and it’s still harmful. That is fully on us. But deeply racist books like The Continent and the Lightworld/Darkworld series should never make it through the hands of acquiring editors, editors, copy editors, sales and marketing directors and into the hands of readers. That’s a publishing problem, and the only way it can be corrected is from the inside. It’s not enough that publishers hire diversely; they have to listen to the employees who do raise objections. There has to be an open discussion that won’t leave someone silenced for fear of losing their job. Diverse hiring needs to apply to every publishing house, line, and imprint, not just the ones that target readers who aren’t white. And white authors who face criticism over their racially problematic books need to listen to those criticisms, rather than taking refuge with the friendly voices who tell them that they’ve done nothing wrong.

No matter how supporters of the book and of Drake try to spin the current social media conversation about The Continent, this isn’t a free speech problem. Drake hasn’t been censored, but her readers and friends have certainly worked hard to silence her critics. Petty bigotry and fragile white egos will undoubtedly drive The Continent onto all the major lists, but it could have been a better book (and a less public learning experience for the author) if someone had simply addressed the problems in its white savior narrative. Her supporters have turned their ire in the wrong direction; Harlequin TEEN could have spared Drake much of the backlash if they’d requested appropriate revisions–or just not acquired the book at all.

So, the answer to the question “how did this get published?” is fairly simple; white authors write books loaded with racism, the publishers that buy them either don’t have a diverse enough staff to see the problems in the books or they just don’t listen to criticism, then readers decide that since the book was published it obviously isn’t racist. Yes, that is an argument floating around social media right now: if it’s so racist, why did they publish it? If you’re still asking yourself that, I refer you to the very top of this post. Reread it, because you haven’t been paying attention. The problem with books like these begin with the authors but ultimately end with the gatekeepers. If you open your eyes, it’s easy to see exactly who those gates are meant to keep out.

For more information about The Continent and the ongoing discussion surrounding it, search the hashtag #TheContinent on Twitter or Facebook.

I Don’t Know What That Is: A Baseball Interlude.

FADE IN:

INT. TEENAGER’S BEDROOM, MORNING.

TEENAGER, a spindly, awkward young blond boy, sleeps open-mouthedly in a puddle of his own drool. He is cocooned in several blankets like a sweet baby angel, if sweet baby angels lived inside burritos. He is awakened by his mother, JENNY TROUT, who takes particular delight in this morning ritual.

Jenny kicks the door open.

JENNY

Wake up, Assbutt! The Cubs won the World Series!

TEENAGER

[groggily]

What?

JENNY

The Cubs won the World Series. For the first time in a hundred and eight years.

TEENAGER

What is that?

JENNY

The Cubs? The Chicago Cubs?

TEENAGER

What the fuck is a Chicago cup?

JENNY

Not the cup, the World Series.

TEENAGER

No, you said Chicago cup.

JENNY

The Chicago Cubs.

TEENAGER

What time is it?

JENNY

It’s a big deal. It’s been a hundred and eight years, dude. Everybody is psyched.

TEENAGER

I don’t even know what a Chicago cup is!

JENNY

It’s baseball! The Chicago Cubs are a baseball team.

TEENAGER

[angrily]

Good for them!

JENNY

Wait, do you seriously not know what the World Series is?

TEENAGER

No. I seriously do not care.

JENNY

Oh. Well, it’s time to get up. And something stinks in here.

FADE OUT.

THE END

Congratulations to all my Cubs fan friends out there! Hollywood couldn’t have written a better, more dramatic ball game than the curse-breaker you got last night.

Mr. Jen Wishes You A Crappy Easter: A Holiday Interlude

FADE IN:

INT. BEDROOM, EVENING.

JENNY TROUT, a paragon of beauty and grace, sits in bed beside her husband, MR. JEN, a heretofore unknown ogre of a human being.

MR. JEN

I don’t know if…I think you probably already heard this before.

JENNY

Uh…

MR. JEN

At Easter, I clogged the toilet twice, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just left.

JENNY

What?

MR. JEN

I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, so I just left.

JENNY

Twice?

MR. JEN

Twice.

JENNY

I don’t understand…was this last year?

MR. JEN

No, this was a long time ago. Years and years ago.

JENNY

Why are you telling me this now?

MR. JEN

I thought you would already know!

JENNY

How the hell would I know that? Was this…I mean, was it twice in the same year or–

MR. JEN

No! God, no. It was two separate years.

JENNY

Oh, thank god. I thought it was twice in the same year, and I couldn’t figure out how you pulled that off. I mean, physically, I don’t know how someone could do that twice in one day. The giant poops and the leaving. I can’t get my head around this. Why didn’t you say something?

MR. JEN

What was I supposed to say?

JENNY

I don’t know, why not, “I need a plunger?”

MR. JEN

Oh, okay. I’ll just go up to someone and say, “Can I have a plunger? I just destroyed your shitter. It’s choking on it real good.”

Jenny reaches for her laptop.

JENNY

I need to do something.

MR. JEN

Do not put that on Facebook! Do not!

JENNY

Not Facebook! I’m putting it on the blog.

MR. JEN

I swear to god, if you put that on Facebook, I will never go to another Easter ever again. Ever.

JENNY

Chill out! I said I was putting on the blog.

MR. JEN

Okay. Wait, no, because what if someone in your family reads it?

JENNY

Nobody in my family reads my blog.

MR. JEN

But what if Kari or somebody reads it?

JENNY

Who the fuck cares if Kari reads it? You would finally be a part of the family! How many stories do we tell about who clogged the toilet on this vacation or which kid had the stinkiest diapers?

MR. JEN

True.

JENNY

You would finally be a real Armintrout. Because you destroyed someone’s shitter.

FADE OUT.

THE END

True Blood Tuesday S02E07 “Release Me”

Sorry for missing last week. I have a note. Here’s the file. Download and hit play as soon as the HBO logo/sound fade.

NEW RELEASE SNEAK PEEK: Wolf’s Honor

My new book, Wolf’s Honor, is available today! Currently, it’s only been released on Amazon and Kobo, but Barnes & Noble and iBooks will have it soon (it’s being distributed by Draft2Digital, so retailers will receive it at different times).

 

A low-born half-human, Henry Barley has fought all his life to find his place. Though he lives and fights alongside them, the wolves of the Canis Clan won’t let him forget the shameful circumstances of his birth—circumstances he would never wish on another wolf. As violence unrest grows within the castle walls, Henry fears for the life of one woman—and the half-wolf child she bears.

As a prisoner of Lord Canis, Ursula has known only violence at the hands of the monsters she is forced to serve. The child she carries is a death sentence, and the only way to escape her fate is to place her life in the hands of a wolf…

CW: Contains depiction of pregnancy by rape

Buy it on Amazon

Wolf’s Honor can be read on its own, but its prequel, Bride Of The Wolf, is still on sale for 99¢ until Halloween!

Read on for a sneak peek at Wolf’s Honor.

Beside him, the girl blinked and breathed hard. Her eyes widened and filled with tears, as though she only finally realized her freedom. She took a shaking step forward, her hand lingering in his. The moment her fingertips slipped from his grasp, she bolted away through the trees.

“Do not run!” he called after her, but she did not heed his warning and he dared not shout again. His blood beat in his veins, the wolf clawing to come out. Somewhere behind the castle walls, another of the clan raised a howl, and he doubled over on himself. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. He clenched his hands to fists. If he let it take him over, now, he would rip her apart, feast on her entrails.

He wanted that. No. His wolf wanted that. The line between the two blurred.

Inside Blackens Gate, the drums beat. The cheers of men and women mingled with the frantic howling of wolves. They would overrun the castle, devouring servants unlucky enough to not find shelter first. Then, the violence would spill into the forest, chasing and fucking and baying at the moon, their goddess of insanity.

Why do you fight me, she seemed to call from the heavens. Why not give in?

He had no answer. His wolf emerged, rending his garments, pouring black fur down his skin and reshaping his limbs. It was but a moment before his mind left him and the animal took over. He smelled the girl, the unwashed fear and shame on her, and all four of his feet pounded after her. There would be blood and tight flesh to rip with his teeth. He would bathe in gore beneath the light of moon, still pale blue against the dismal twilight. When it was round and yellow, he would have eaten his fill. He smelled the shape of her footprints. She had bounded the wrong way, straight for the castle gates.

No! I meant to help her escape! It was a rare thing, to be so clear headed beneath the moonlight. A flash of precognition came to him, perhaps from the mad goddess herself. He saw the girl, a swaddled babe at her breast. The firelight showed the perspiration on her brow, on her bare shoulder. She looked from the babe to him, directly into his eyes. She opened her mouth to speak to him.

A scream shattered the air and his vision all at once. His feet pounded down the forest floor, but not to kill. To protect. Her cry echoed off the trees again, and he silently implored her, Do not run from them! Do not give them a reason to chase you!

Two large wolves had her backed against a fallen log. Her hair fell into her eyes, and a trickle of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth. Henry watched as the muscles in the backs of the two huge gray wolves rippled, slowing their stalk toward her, preparing them to lunge. A low, deep snarl passed through his jaws. The wolves turned at once and paced tight circles around each other, a barrier between the prey and the interloper that had come upon them. Henry growled and snapped, catching a tail, and a loud yelp split the air. The other wolf tackled him, tumbling him across the loam. He struggled to find his footing as teeth sank around the back of his neck. He twisted free and charged at the girl, who scrambled back, falling over the log to sprawl in the dirt.

The wolf came at him again, and Henry met him head on, throwing his body hard against his attacker. It staggered sideways and padded off, in search of easier game. It must have been one of the younger wolves, afraid to break social rank even on a night of unbridled hedonism. The second wolf was not so easily deterred.

The animal circled and snarled, considering another attack, but keeping Henry on the defensive. When the beast finally sprang, teeth sank into Henry’s head, above and below his eye. He yelped and whipped to the side, tearing free. Blood streamed into his eye and obscured his vision, but he knocked the other wolf down. He caught the scent of the beast’s sweat, and recognized him.

Either he intended to bring the girl back to Blackens Gate, or he meant to kill her for the part she had played in his humiliation at dinner.

Henry thought of his own mother. He thought of the life she might have led, the child he might have been. He looked at the girl frozen on the ground, pale and trembling with fear, and he wanted to kill. But not her.

He sprang at Lucas, knocking him hard into the ground. Before the other wolf could recover, Henry was upon him and closed his mouth over the animal’s jaw. Lucas’s back legs ceased their helpless kicking, and he whined his forfeit. Henry drew blood, just to be certain the yield held once he released him. With his body between the wolf and the girl, Henry bared his teeth in challenge, and Lucas backed away a few paces before turning to run.

On the other side of the fallen tree, the girl still lay in the dirt, propped back on her elbows. Her eyes grew wider, and she whimpered in fear. She did not recognize him, Henry realized. There was no way to reassure her but to change back, difficult and painful as it was in the light of the moon. His very bones protesting, he forced himself to reshape his limbs, to straighten and walk upright, the sable hair melting away. He groaned as the split skin around his eye changed shape, and reached to wipe away the blood.

On the ground, she looked up at him, and he knew what a sight he must be, dirty, naked, and breathing hard after a fight that had left him wounded. Once he had recovered enough to speak, he asked, “What is your name, girl?”

She did not make a move to run, this time. “Ursula.”

“Ursula,” Henry repeated, before a nearby howl turned his head sharply north. He looked back to her, conjuring the most commanding tone he could muster. “Because of you, we are alone and unarmed in a forest full of wolves. Do not disobey me again.”

It takes and it takes and it takes

I was sitting in bed watching TV when the phone rang. Baba never calls after nine; she’s usually asleep. So we answered it. She told me my grandfather (the donut stealer, if you follow me on Twitter) had fallen twice and the ambulance had arrived to take him in. She was going to drive to the hospital herself. I said no way.

When I arrived at the house, one firefighter had stayed behind with her until I arrived. “What were his vitals?” I asked, and he told me that he had been unresponsive when the ambulance had left. His heart rate had been 100 bpm, but his blood oxygen was 66.

If you’re unfamiliar with vital statistics, 66 is not good.

We drove to the hospital with a bag of his prescriptions and a bag of clothes. All the way there, Baba kept accusing him of not eating right, of having too much candy and crashing his blood sugar. I didn’t tell her what the fireman said. Partially because I didn’t want to upset her and partially because I truly believed that when we arrived he would already be in surgery, and the doctor could tell her.

At the emergency room, I went up to the nurse at the window and told her that my grandfather had been brought in by ambulance. I tried to hand her the bag of his prescriptions. She said, “We don’t need those right now.”

They had already taken Baba into a private waiting room. When I entered, the doctor was sitting down.

If you’re unfamiliar with doctors, sitting down is not good.

When Grandpa had arrived, he was already in cardiac arrest. They were working on him, doing chest compressions. Baba wanted to see him. We waited for a nurse to come, and she prepared Baba for what she would see. That he’d been intubated. That there would be wires on him. That they were still doing chest compressions but that he didn’t have a pulse. The doctor told me they’d been working on him for thirty minutes.

If you’re unfamiliar with hearts, thirty minutes without a pulse is not good. You’re probably familiar with hearts, though.

I called my uncle and told him, “Your dad isn’t going to make it.” He said, “What does that mean? How do you know?”

Because I know. I worked in the very hospital my grandfather was in right then. I was a CENA in a nursing home. I was raised by an RN, in a family of EMTs. And that’s why, when I walked into the room and saw the red-faced, sweating nurse pumping my grandfather’s chest, that it wouldn’t do any good.

I told the doctor that they should stop. There were already signs of biological death; his feet were pale, his eyes were open and flat. Baba said no, that I was wrong. “You’re wrong, you’re wrong!” I keep hearing that over and over. And I wished I was wrong. I wanted to knock the nurse out of the way and take over compressions, because surely I could make his heart beat if I wanted it enough.

I thought of that scene on Buffy, of all things, where she sees her mom lying on the floor, the paramedics working on her. Coming back to life, being rushed to the hospital.

If you’re unfamiliar with brains, they totally work like that.

My phone rang. My totally inappropriate Rick and Morty ringtone went off in the room as they noted the time of death. I went to the hallway to answer it. Instead, I threw my phone on the floor. I threw my purse on the floor, I threw everything as hard and violent as I could. There was a crash cart in the hall, a big, metal thing. I kicked it hard.

If you’re unfamiliar with feet, heads up. That’s how you break them.

A nurse came and put her arms around me. I apologized and asked where the bathroom was. I limped there, while she said I should really let them look at my foot, that I shouldn’t be walking on it. I told her I would be fine. I went into the bathroom and vomited while the nurse picked up all the stuff I’d thrown in my rage.

I asked the chaplain to contact an Orthodox priest. He didn’t know any. I didn’t know my grandfather’s priest. A half hour later, the chaplain informed us that he’d found a Greek Orthodox priest who was on his way. Russian, I kept insisting. Russian. It’s important. His father was a priest, it has to be a Russian Orthodox priest like his father. I ended up googling the name  of the priest at their church, and thankfully I found his home number. He and Matushka were in their car. “What does that mean, he’s died?” They were as shocked as we were. They arrived only shortly after the Greek priest.

If you’re unfamiliar with priests, they’re apparently like buses. What’s that saying about two of them showing up at once?

They both stayed to recite prayers to release my grandfather’s soul, and to comfort my grandmother. My biological dad arrived. I’d told him on the phone that he had to come, that I needed reinforcements. My uncle arrived. We didn’t know who we should call next. I was running a high fever from an ill-timed bought of pneumonia that set in during the week. My foot hurt and I couldn’t walk on it. I didn’t know what do or what the next steps were. I had no plan, and grandpa had no plan. Not even a plot to be buried in.

The last time my grandfather and I spoke, it was weeks ago. Weeks and weeks. We got into a huge fight about something serious. I screamed at him. I told him to get out of the house. The next time he came by, I wouldn’t talk to him.

I don’t regret our fight because it wasn’t something that could be dismissed. Family business, family secrets, things that had ruined my love for him forever. I don’t regret telling him, shouting at him what I felt. I do regret that the last thing I ever said to him was, “Get the fuck out of my house. I’m done with you.”

If you’re unfamiliar with grief, that’s not an ideal last memory to have.

I left Baba at the hospital with her sons and drove to the house. I cleaned up the bathroom where my grandfather had collapsed. He’d hit his head on the toilet. I wiped up his blood. I threw his underwear into the trash. I washed the rug.

I told his dog. His stupid, ugly little shih tzu with its homely underbite and weird, bulgy eyes, who can’t figure out why the invisible fence shocks him but keeps trying to run away, anyway. I said, “Steve isn’t coming back.” The dog curled up on the rug in front of the door. I think he understood. He doesn’t understand not to pee on the carpet, but he understands death, I guess.

It was two in the morning before I got home. It was three when I went to bed. I didn’t sleep until six, and woke up at ten. I wanted to get up earlier because my daughter had planned on seeing her baba and papa. She’d planned to call them as soon as she got up. Thankfully, she opted to watch Netflix instead. I sat between my kids on the couch and told them. My husband took them out to lunch and an arcade to distract them.

I don’t know what else to do for them. I don’t know what else to do for my family. I don’t understand why we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. I don’t understand how he could go to bed at 9:30 and be dead at 10:30. I don’t understand how I could be so hateful as to never see my grandfather again after our fight. I don’t understand why I broke my foot, why I told them to stop working on him, why my father called me “kid” and gave me his phone number for the first time in my life. I don’t understand why I close my eyes and see my grandfather’s, bloodshot and dead. I just don’t understand.

Vichnaya Pamyat.

SALE! Bride of the Wolf is 99¢!

From now until Halloween, my historical paranormal romance Bride of the Wolf is on sale for 99¢. Read about some werewolves to get you into the swing of the spooky season!

Betrothed to the heir of Lord Canis, Aurelia finds herself thrown to the wolves. The Canis

Clan are no ordinary warriors, but beasts raging beneath the skin of men. Their name chills the heart of every man in Britannia, though the heart of one maiden may be saved…

Once a mighty warrior in high esteem among the Clan, Sir Raf Canis knows all too well the dangers Aurelia will face in her new role as Lady of Blackens Gate. Tasked with the humiliating errand of delivering his brother’s intended, Raf instead finds himself fighting for her life–and falling into an impossible love that he cannot deny.

Content Warning: This book contains ableist language and attitudes in the context of its historical setting, as well as mentions of suicide, which may be triggering or upsetting to some readers.

(Originally published in 2011)

Amazon • Barnes & Noble

This is also a chance for you to read the first book before the second in the series comes out next Tuesday!

Because someone pointed out that the font’s H looks like a B, I now call this book, “Wolf’s Boner.” That said, it’s still a really good book if you like pregnant heroines and virgin heroes. Virgin werewolf heroes.

Everybody loves a virgin werewolf, right?